The present invention relates to raster printers of the type which print text and image data in response to coded digital input data and more particularly to such printers which have the ability of place variable sized characters anywhere on a printed page, irrespective of the order in which the characters are received at the printer.
Printers of the type which print graphic characters in response to coded character data in binary form have found widespread use in many data processing operations and systems. Such printers respond to the incoming coded character data to physically print the graphic characters represented by the character data as defined by the code thereof. The printing operation can assume various different forms including the well known impact printer in which the graphic character is produced by the selection of a piece of type which strikes the paper or other printable medium to produce the desired graphic character. There has also been in the prior art different non-impact printers in which the graphic character data is produced on the printable material by the deposition of some marking medium on the paper without physical impact of a piece of type or other similar device.
Prior art printers of the type described suffer from a number of disadvantages which often limit their usefulness. One limitation of such printers relates to the limitation of the number of fonts they could produce and a restriction in their flexibility of placing characters on the printed page. For example, it has not been possible in prior art printers to print a sequence of characters that can proceed in any direction to place characters of any position on the page, or to select from a wide variety of character sizes at any time.